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Hair devoted to Proserpine

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Till a lock of hàir is devoted to Proserpine, she refuses to release the soul from the dying body. When Dido mounted the funeral pile, she lingered in suffering till Juno sent Iris to cut off a lock of her hair. Thanătos did the same for Alcestis, when she gave her life for her husband. And in all sacrifices a forelock was first cut off from the head of the victim as an offering to the black queen.

“Hunc ego Diti

Sacrum jussa fero, teque isto corpore solvo.ʹ

Sic ait, et dextra crinem secat …

… atque in ventos vita recessit.”


Virgil: Æneid, iv. 702–5.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Hail-fellow-well-met (A)
Hair
Hair
Hair, Hairs
Hair-brained
Hair-breadth Scape
Hair Eels
Hair-Splitting
Hair Stane
Hair by Hair
Hair devoted to Proserpine
Hair of a Dissembling Colour
Hair of the Dog that Bit You (A)
Hair stand on End
Hake
Hal
Halacha [rule]
Halberjects or Haubergets
Halcyon Days
Half
Half